The words here are substantially equivalent to former words in the
chapter which we have already considered, where our Lord says: 'If ye
love Me, ye will keep My commandments.'
There is, however, a slight difference in the point of view in the two
sayings; the former begins with the root and traces it upwards and
outwards to its fruits, love blossoming into obedience. Our text
reverses the process, and takes the thing by the other end; begins with
the fruits and traces them downwards and inwards to the root. 'He that
hath and keepeth My commandments, he it is that loveth Me.' The two
sayings substantially mean the same thing; but in the one love is put
first as the cause of obedience, and in the other obedience is put
first, as the certain fruit and sure sign of love. The connection
between these and the preceding words is, as I have already pointed
out, that our Lord here brings all His lofty promises down to the
sharp, practical requirement of obedience, as the only condition on
which they can be fulfilled.
So note, and very briefly about this matter, how remarkably our Lord
here declares the _possession_ of His commandments to be a sign of love
to Him. 'He that _hath_,' a word which is generally passed over in our
reading—'He that hath My commandments, He it is that loveth Me.' Of
course there are two ways of having His commandments; there is having
them in the Bible, and there is having them in the heart;—present
before my eye, as a law that I ought to obey, or present within my
will, as a power that shapes it. And the latter is the only kind of
'having' that Christ regards as real and valid. The rest is only
preparatory and superficial. Love possesses the knowledge of the loved
one's will. Is not that true? Do we not all know how strange is the
power of divining desires that goes along with true affection, and how
the power, not only of divining, but of treasuring, these desires is
the test and the thermometer of our true love? Some of us, perhaps,
keep laid away in sacred, secret places tattered, yellow, old bits of
paper with the words of a dear one on them, that we would not part
with. 'He that hath My commandments' laid up in lavender in the deepest
recesses of his faithful heart, he it is 'that loveth Me.'
In like manner, our Lord says, the practical obedience to His
commandments is the sure sign and test of love. I need not dwell upon
that. There are two motives for keeping commandments—one because they
are commanded, and one because we love Him that commands. The one is
slavery, the other is liberty. The one is like the Arctic regions, cold
and barren, the other is like tropical lands, full of warmth and
sunshine, glorious and glad fertility.
The form of the sentence suggests how easy it is for people to delude
themselves about their love to Jesus Christ. That emphatic 'he,' and
the putting first of the character before its root is pointed out, are
directed against false pretensions to love. The love that Christ stamps
with His hall-mark, and passes as genuine, is no mere emotion, however
passionate, however sweet; no mere sentiment, however pure, however
deep. The tiniest little rivulet that drives a mill is better than a
Niagara that rushes and foams and tumbles idly. And there is much
so-called love to Jesus Christ that goes masquerading up and down the
world, from which the paint is stripped by the sharp application of the
words of my text. Character and conduct are the true demonstrations of
Christian love, and it is only love so attested that He accepts.
III. Lastly, notice the further and sweeter gifts of divine love and
manifestation which reward our love and obedience.
'He that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him,
and will manifest Myself to him.' Two things, then, He tells us, are
the rich rewards and sparkling crowns with which He crowns our poor
love to Him—the love of the Father and the love of the Christ, separate
and yet united, and the further manifestation of Christ's sweetness to
the waiting heart.
Note, as to the first, the extraordinary boldness of that majestic
saying: 'If a man loves _Me_, My Father will love _him_.' God regards
our love to Jesus Christ as the fulfilling of the law, as equivalent to
our supreme love to Himself, as containing in it the germ of all that
is pleasing in His sight. And so, upon our hearts, if we love Christ,
there falls the benediction of the Father's love. Of course I need not
remind you that our Lord here is not beginning at the very beginning of
everything; for prior to all men's love to Christ is Christ's love to
men, and ours to Him is but the reflection and the echo called forth by
His to us. 'We love Him because He first loved us' digs a story deeper
down in the building than the words of my text, which is speaking, not
of the process by which a man comes to receive the love of God for the
first time, but of the process by which a Christian man grows in his
possession of it. That being understood, here is a great lesson. It is
not all the same to God whether a man is a scoundrel or a saint. The
divine love is over all its works, and embraces every variety of
humanity, the most degraded, alien, hostile. But in this generation, as
it seems to me, there is great need for preaching that whilst that is
gloriously and blessedly true, the other thing is just as true, that to
know the deepest depth and to taste the sweetest sweetness of the love
of our Father God, there must be in our hearts love to Him whom He has
sent, which manifests itself by our obedience. God's love is a moral
love; and whilst the sunbeams play upon the ice and melt it sometimes,
they flash back from, and rest most graciously and fully on, the
rippling stream into which the ice has turned. God loves them that love
Him not, but the depths of His heart and the secret, sacred favours of
His grace can only be bestowed upon those who in some measure are
conformed, and are growingly being conformed, to His likeness in Jesus
Christ, and who love Him and obey Him.
And, in like manner, my text tells us that if we wish to know all that
it is possible for us here, amidst the clouds, and shadows, and
darknesses, to know of that dear Lord, the path to such knowledge is
plain. Walk in the way of obedience, and Christ will meet you with the
unveiling of more and more of His love. To live what we believe is the
sure way to increase its amount. To be faithful to the little is the
certain way to inherit the much. And Christ manifests Himself, in all
deep and recondite sweetness, gentleness, constraining power, to the
men who treasure the partial knowledge as yet possessed, in their
loving hearts and obedient wills, and who make a conscience of
translating all their knowledge into conduct, and of basing all their
conduct on knowledge of Him. He gives us His whole self at the first,
but we traverse the breadth of the gift by degrees. He puts Himself
into our hands and into our hearts when we humbly trust Him and
imperfectly try to love Him. But the flower is but a bud when we get
it, and, as we hold it, it opens its petals to the light.
So, if 'any man wills to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine';
and if, touched by His divine love and infinite sacrifice for me, I
cast my poor self upon Him, and try to love Him back again, and to keep
His commandments because I love, then day by day I shall realise more
and more of His strong, immortal, all-satisfying love, and see more and
more deeply into that Saviour, whose infinite beauties remain
unrevealed after all revelation, and to know more and more of whom
shall be the Heaven of Heavens yonder, as it is the joy and life of the
soul here.